Good morning,
This week is 'Belgian Fashion Week'. Not much to do with modelling, I know, but there are some things to do in Mechelen, and the week closes off with the 'Warm Welkom Weekend', featuring a bit of animation in the streets. Could be a nice excuse to plan a visit to Mechelen (and Modelist!).
Onwards to modelling!
Nothing to report on the Strv or Jolie Brise. Strv is still waiting on paint, Jolie Brise is slowly but surely getting planked.
I've made some progress on the Fairey Battle. I decided to replace the thick bomb doors with Evergreen Plastic strips. Saves me the effort of filling/sanding those knockout marks. I used 0.5 x 3.2mm strips, but these come in a wide variety of sizes, of which I have a small selection in the shop.
Just cut to size and glue; as these are made of polystyrene, you can just use regular modelling cement:
The thinner plastic makes for a much more realistic look.
I then sprayed the underside Flat Aluminium and used masking putty to create a wavy border line. I'm not too sure about the green (it looks too dark), so that will probably merit another respray:
Moving on to the Hurricane, I finished the cockpit, using a 3D printed resin seat and PE pre-painted seatbelts:
The seatbelts especially are a huge improvement over the kit decal-based belts. The seat will be quite visible later, unlike the instrument panel:
The top one is the plastic, with an instrument decal over it. The bottom is a 3D printed, precoloured replacement. Its details are slightly more sharply defined but as it's mostly buried in the fuselage it won't be very visible...
The cockpit itself is built up much like the real one with a tubular structure:
You glue together the two fuselage halves and slide it over the cockpit, glue it to the wings, then add the tailplanes.
This all fits quite well together, and the one-piece horizontal stabiliser makes sure everything is aligned perfectly.
I added the resin cannon barrels and sprayed the area around the cockpit green. There are two cockpit canopies provided, one closed and one open. When closed, the rear end covers the green-painted area. I thought I would be able to use the closed canopy as a one-piece paint mask, but the fit is not very good, so I'll have to use masking tape & foam to close it off.
The landing gear legs are not fixed yet, and are fitted temporarily to make sure the angles of the separate rear leg are glued correctly.
Finally, the large oil cooler under the fuselage was painted and installed:
Here too, I pre-painted an area where I'll have to mask later.
Lastly, I went through most of a bottle of
Leveling Thinner and a bottle of
GX-100 to build up a nice shiny gloss coat on the Actros truck. This week: polishing!
That's it for now.
See you next week!
